Martha Nussbaum Lecture"The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear"April 2, 2013Philosophy presentsProfessor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, author of many books on social justice and rights.

5:00 p.m. UAB Alumni HouseWhat impulse prompted newspapers to attribute the murder of 77 Norwegians to Islamic extremists, until it became evident that a right-wing Norwegian terrorist was the perpetrator? Why did Switzerland, a country of four minarets, vote to ban those structures? How did a proposed Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan ignite a fevered political debate across the US? In The New Religious Intolerance, Martha C. Nussbaum surveys such developments and identifies the fear behind these reactions. Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, she suggests a route past this limiting response and toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society.

Martha Nussbaum received her BA from NYU and her MA and PhD from Harvard. She has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford Universities. She has received honorary degrees from over forty universities in the U. S., Canada, Asia, Africa, and Europe. She is currently the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago Law School, and authored numerous books on social justice and rights, including Sex and Social Justice (1998), Hiding From Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (2004) and her latest The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age (2012).